Email Addresses

So you've decided to take the plunge and post to AFP.

But, hold on a minute! Aren't there lots of nasty bots (programs) that trawl newsgroups harevesting email addresses for spammers to use. You don't want a whole load of rubbish in your mail box, thankyouverymuch.So, just to be on the safe side, you alter the email address in your news software so that the email address in your AFP posts will be unusable.

Now, that's sensible, isn't it?

WRONG!

As you'll no doubt be told if you post to AFP with a munged (forged/altered) email address.

Let's look at what you might have done....

You added nospam to the end of your, valid, email address

Save your energy. Most harvesting bots are intelligent enough to strip comments like nospam out - leaving them with a nice, valid email address

You made up an email address - one which couldn't possibly exist and which should indicate to the human reader that it's false.

Are you sure it couldn't possibly exist? Did you check first? Could some poor innocent be getting all your email - rubbish or otherwise?

nowhere.com, for example, is a real domain name. The same applies to:

• somewhere.com
• spam.com
• nospam.com
• wibble.org
• bother.com (just in case you plumped for dont.bother.com)

Still convinced that email address you 'made up' doesn't exist? If it doesn't exist now, are you going to remember to check, regularly, to see if someone has registered it recently.

Using false email addresses is not only bad manners but may actually contravene your ISP's Acceptable Usage Policy. Attract their attention and you risk losing your Internet connection.

What's The Problem

Many AFPers object to forged or mangled email addresses - for good reasons.

Apart from the technical reasons listed above, there are many situations on AFP when email is not only a possible means of communication but the preferred alternative to a newsgroup posting.

Peter Ellis, from AFP, suggested the following scenarios where email might be more appropriate:

Discussion on a particular topic, say religion or politics, is
getting increasingly polarised, and all participants bar two have dropped
out.  It's unfair to go on inflicting that on the whole group, but it may
well be of interest to both of you, and could well be transferred to an
email conversation.

You post something contentious, and <foo> person chews your ass about
it.  It's nice to be able to send a message of sympathy, saying "<foo> is
a cranky old fool" - while sending that to the group would cause a large
acrimonious shitstorm.

You may post here asking for help with a problem, or the answer
to a particular question.  (see something like alt.fan.pratchett.bofh for
this, where the techies may post asking where to find a particular-shaped
widget for their computer).  Again, lots of replies on-group don't do much
for the thousands reading, and if you do want something you may need to
get in touch with whoever's given you answer to confirm details - again
best done by private email.

Say you post something in an emotionally-fraught thread - an opinion
on childcare of GM food, and I take offence.  I might want to confirm my
interpretation with you before taking up the issue (either publically if
many are interested, privately if it's just the two of us arguing, or drop
the subject).  A sort of "Did you really mean we should shoot all
shoplifters, or was that a joke?"  situation.

In all the above, it would be better sorted out by email than on-group,
simply because it's going to be of interest to you and the person who
wants to mail you, but not to the group as a whole.

So email is a fact of life on AFP. If the email address you have used is valid but forged, it could mean that AFPers are, inadvertently, sending emails to someone who doesn't have the faintest idea of what they're talking about and who may be, quite rightly, getting very annoyed by such mailings.

If the address you have used isn't valid, then many news and mail software will warn the sender and refuse to send out the mail but only after the person in question has gone to the lengths of composing and typing said mail. Have that happen to you a few times in a row and you would find your temper getting rather frayed too. In short, invalid email addresses aren't only in breach of many AUPs but are simply bad manners.

So how do I post to AFP and avoid being spammed as a consequence?

In short, it's impossible to to provide a 100% spam free solution. Users of services such as AOL or Freeserve may find that they have been receiving spam right from their first day - mainly due to the 'spam loopholes' in their service's setup. However, it is possible to greatly restrict the amount of spam received by following a few simple rules:

• Set up your From address to read something like 'spam@nothing.invalid'. This means that the automated robots that trawl for addresses for junk mail will pick up the address ending '.invalid', which has been specifically set aside as unregistrable. Now you won't be indirectly responsible for dumping junk mail onto someone else.
• Set up your Repy-To field to your real email address. Most mail and news clients use this field when addressing emails, so would-be correspondants will be able to contact you. However, the address harvesting bots on Usenet often only focus on the From field. They sually ignore the Reply -To field leaving your email address untouched.
• Set up an email account with one of the free email providers, such as Hotmail or Yahoo!. Use this address as a general spambin in the From field and your real email address in the Reply-To field, as before. Just remember to log into your chosen free email provider every now and then and empty all the spam out of the mailbox.
• Organisations like http://dea.spamcon.org provide free 'cloaking' email addresses that you can use and dispose of at will.

What if I don't want any email - even from other AFPers?

Frankly, I'd say that's your loss and I would urge you to think again, As outlined above, there are times when email is a far more appropriate medium than a public posting to the group. However, if you are absolutely committed to this approach and intend to delete all incoming email unread, then follow the instructions above (ie ensure that you have a vaild email address in the Reply-To Field) but add a warning line to the end of all your posts along the lines of:

Email to the Reply-To address will not be read

Think of it as a case of Manners Maketh The Poster

© esmi 2006